Field of the Art
The disclosure relates to the field of geometric vector (path, curve) editing, especially (but not exclusively) when the vectors have a background context such as a two-dimensional raster image, three-dimensional surface model, or three-dimensional stereo image, and especially (but not exclusively) as the vectors and the background context related to remotely-sensed imagery.
Discussion of the State of the Art
Commercial geographic information system (GIS) packages such as ERDAS IMAGINE™ and ESRI ARCMAP™ are products that (among other things) enable the user to modify the trajectories of existing vectors in a viewer. Often these vectors correspond to linear features in a raster image also displayed in the viewer underneath the vectors. The user performs an edit by grabbing a vertex (waypoint) on a vector with the mouse cursor, and then dragging it to a new location within the viewer. This process can be tedious and tiresome if there are many vertices on many vectors that need to be moved. Additionally, these interfaces do not allow image content to automatically influence the rerouting of the vectors. Instead, the rerouting is determined entirely by the user's mouse clicks.
Using traditional implementations, editing vector trajectories is a manual, granular, and tedious process. Depending on the spatial accuracy required of the resulting vectors (in relation to the corresponding linear features of the underlying raster image), the task of vector editing with traditional tools can be very costly in terms of time and personnel.
What is needed is a system (or systems) of software tools to edit existing vectors that is more automated and efficient than traditional tools, that supports the editing of both two-dimensional and three-dimensional vectors, and that enables the background context to automatically influence the rerouting of vectors if so desired. If the three-dimensional vectors represent a special class of linear features in the background context (e.g., single-line hydrology features), then it is desirable that the editing tools should automatically enforce any geometric constraints on the edited vectors that are appropriate for the class of linear features being modeled. It would be useful to have more automated and efficient tools for editing vectors in the absence of any background context. A traditional tool of the latter kind is ADOBE PHOTOSHOP™, which allows the user edit vectors by inserting and dragging vertices (waypoints) and by manipulating vector tangents into those waypoints (e.g., via lever-arms).